Europe threatens Microsoft over IE again

Browser wars just won't go away as unfair practice claims come back

In a move that should surely surprise no one, the European Commission (EC) has renewed its assault on Microsoft and announced that it believes the US giant is still behaving anti-competitively.

Yesterday saw the EC renew its accusations that Microsoft is illegally preventing other companies from competing fairly against Internet Explorer by making the browser an integral part of Windows.

More money?

After paying over £600 million in fines to the EC already, Microsoft now has two months to respond or face yet another fine.

Whether that response includes "a remedy that would restore genuine consumer choice and enable competition on its merits" – as the EC demands – remains to be seen.

Microsoft, for its part, contends that it has already done everything necessary to compete fairly, after a 2002 US ruling imposed clear conditions that should allow the likes of Mozilla and Google to join the browser wars on an equal footing.